Girly names and sexy names

Everyone's glommed on to a revived story about a study that found more "feminine" names undermine a girl's chances at success in science and engineering, and much gnashing of teeth ensued. (See here, here, here, here and here.) Then the Scientific Indian noted the tendency for his culture's tendency to give girls names with a certain vowel ending, lamenting that such habits are foolish. But is there something more substantial at work? One researcher thinks so.

A brief item in New Scientist appeared a little while back with this headline: "Are you too sexy for your name?" How can you resist? So here it is:

HOW attractive are you? The answer could depend partly on your name.

Linguist Amy Perfors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology placed photos that included prominent names on the "Hot or Not?" website, which allows viewers to rank strangers' photos. Each photo was posted at different times with different names. She found that men labelled with names including "front vowels" - sounds produced in the front of the mouth such as the "aaa" in Matt - were rated as more attractive than photos labelled with "back vowel" names, such as the "aw" sound in Paul. The opposite was true for women, she told the Cognitive Science Society meeting in Chicago last week.

While most linguists think there is no inherent relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning, there is some evidence to the contrary, says Perfors. Front vowels are often perceived as "smaller" than back vowels. It may seem counterintuitive that men with a smaller-sounding, front vowel in their names are rated as more attractive, but other studies show that men with slightly feminine features are considered more desirable. "Maybe women are subconsciously looking for more sensitive or gentle men," says Perfors. But if you're thinking of changing your name, don't go too far - men with women's names were rated least attractive of all.

From issue 2460 of New Scientist magazine, 14 August 2004, page 16

The story was hyped elsewhere (see, for example, the BBC version), prompting lead scientist Amy Perfors of MIT to write an extended explanation of what her study was really all about. Which was:

Men's names with stressed front vowel: Dave, Craig, Ben, Jake, Rick, Steve, Matt
Men's names with stressed back vowel: Lou, Paul, Luke, Tom, Charles, George, John
Women's names with stressed front vowel: Melanie, Jamie, Jess, Jill, Amy, Tracy, Ann, Liz
Women's names with stressed back vowel: Laura, Julie, Robin, Susan, Holly, Carmen

...

How big is this effect? Not very big. It's statistically significant, meaning it was unlikely to have come about by chance, but it's not large - less than half a point on a 10-point scale.1 In other words, if you're Brad Pitt, you'd be more attractive than Joe Schmoe regardless of what your name is; but if Jud and Jim Schmoe are otherwise equally attractive, then Jim, who has the 'better' name, might be statistically more likely to be rated attractive than Jud. I wouldn't consider changing your name over this - my name is Amy, which is technically more unattractive, but I like it! And I think that factors like overall looks and personality are far more important.

So, lots of caveats, but interesting nonetheless. Perfors notes that she's "a bit nervous that some people seem to be drawing huge conclusions that aren't necessarily warranted by my data. This was just a preliminary study, and good science depends on replication of results." She adds that she's not going to follow up, as this sort of thing is really a diversion from her main line of research: "computational models of language and conceptual representation and development."